How Googlers Ate Healthier with Behavioral Design
I loved this long piece on Google’s efforts to help their employees eat healthier. It’s a fantastic case study on how to effectively drive behavioral change at scale.
Unhealthy eating is a major problem in the US and, increasingly, worldwide. According to the CDC, 39.8% of US adults - about 93.3 million people - were obese as of 2016. Many millions more are simply overweight.
Improving those numbers has proven to be a challenge. The problem has only gotten worse since the government released dietary guidelines. The diet industry rakes in billions of dollars in revenue, but hasn’t proven to actually reduce waistlines. Employers have invested billions into corporate wellness programs without much to show for results.
Google’s famous cafeterias feed tens of thousands of people every day and provide a unique lab for testing solutions to the problem. Like any corporation, they’re incentivized to have healthier employees, which lowers their healthcare cost. By actually providing the food those employees eat for many of their meals, they’re in a unique position to drive that.
Their approach is classic behavioral science: change behavior by altering the environment. For nearly 8 years, Google has been testing changes in the design of their cafeterias and monitoring how they affect the food and beverage choices of their employees. Some examples:
Moving snacks further from the coffee machine. Mindless snacking is an easy way for busy and stressed employees to add unnecessary calories to their diet. Google moved the snacks in their break areas further from the coffee machine - from 6.5 to 17 feet away - and reduced consumption by as much as 23% for men and 17% for women. Extra friction reduces action.
Displaying water and healthy snacks more prominently than higher calorie options. "The bottom half of the kitchen refrigerators’ glass doors are now frosted, allowing Googlers to see the plain water, flavored waters, carrot sticks, and yogurt, while hiding the sweetened teas and sodas. It’s not that the employees don’t know that those items are there — ‘We’re not dumb,’ said Tina Williams with a laugh — but not seeing them reduces her temptation to indulge."
They made healthier options taste better. The company partnered with the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) to develop vegetable options that were not only healthy, but tasted great. Why? "Because what motivates people to engage and stick with virtuous patterns of behavior has less to do with all the logical reasons they should and more to do with how much the person enjoys doing that virtuous thing — whether that’s going to the gym or eating their vegetables."
The project is a classic example of choice architecture in action. The majority of our decisions happen unconsciously, driven by habits, heuristics, and the surrounding environment. Small changes to the arrangement of choices can significantly alter behavior.
Of course, there are many ethical questions surrounding the idea of manipulating people’s choices via the surrounding environment. That’s why I like that Google avoided making too specific of diet recommendations and preserved the freedom of their employees to choose whatever they like. “As the employer, we are investing in the program, and we are dealing with your health care and your long-term health and well-being. But we very much believe in freedom of choice,” said the food program’s head, Michiel Bakker. “So, we’re not taking things away. There is no prescriptive: Thou shalt eat carrots.” They simply made it easier to make healthier choices and harder to make less healthy ones.